Vegas Baby!, Yeah! (Lords of Vegas, Boomtown)

I'm always searching for a great negotiation game. Although Monopoly has it's flaws, I still haven't found a game that I think does negotiation better. I think that ultimately it boils down to the fact that I find negotiating more fun when there is latitude to deal and returns are based on speculation. This means that I inherently prefer negotiation games that have an element of luck, games where a calculated risk can pay off or go bad. The problems with Monopoly are numerous, but unfortunately all the euro games I've played since starting this hobby solve many of the mechanical problems but also strip the negotiation aspect of much of it's interest.

The three games that I have played that came closest where Traders of Genoa, Chinatown and I'm the Boss!. ToG is a great strategy/ negotiation game but it's too heavy for most and there is little financial latitude in most cases. Chinatown is a nice, pure negotiation game but the value of a trade can be calculated and that sucks some of the fun out of it. I'm the Boss is a lot of fun, but it's almost a party game.

So, how does Lords of Vegas fare in the field? First impressions are quite good.

Lords of Vegas

Lords of Vegas has a few surface similarities to Chinatown. Both feature a gameboard showing city blocks that are organized into labelled grids. Both see players drawing lots at random, thus seeding the board and giving everyone a starting point for negotiation. Of course, this is a vegas game, so it makes sense that risk and reward figure prominently in how the game actually plays out. And dice. Lords of Vegas has lots of dice.

Each turn, after a player draws his/ her random lot, the game pays out a small amount to anyone who has unbuilt lots in play and a larger amount to anyone who has built portions of casinos matching the colour of the drawn card. Next, victory points are scored by the players who are "the boss" of the casinos that paid out. Clearly, the aim of the game is to be the beneficiary of as many pay outs as possible and be the boss of casinos that will generate victory points!

With the unbuilt lots as a starting point, players have the following options:

1) Build casinos on lots: Players choose to build a section of a casino on a lot he owns. There are several colours of casinos that can be built. The colour is completely up to the player (as long as pieces are available). The choice of colours depends on two things; a) two casinos of the same colour that grow into each other merge, and b) you can see which casino cards have been drawn so far and therefore which casino colours are likely to pay out in the future (there are only 9 of each colour). The lot will have a picture of a die with a number on it. The player will take one of his dice and place it on the space with the appropriate number facing up. This is important because if two casinos merge, the player with the highest number is the boss.

2) Sprawl: Players can expand an existing casino into an adjacent lot. This is beneficial because casinos generate VPs based on size. This is risky because if a player later draws that lot, he immediately becomes the owner. Not all cards come out, though, so it's a gamble.

3) Renovate: Change the colour of a casino. This can be a defensive move to prevent a merger or an offensive move to create one.

4) Reorganize: Any player that owns at least one section of a casino can "shake up the establishement" by re-rolling all the dice in that casino. Whoever has the highest numbered die after the re-roll is the new boss. Obviously, this costs money so it can't be done on a whim, but it is a way for a player to take a risk and try to take over a casino that was previously someone else's.

5) Gamble: Any player can go to someone else's casino and gamble. They place a sum of money on the line and roll the dice. If the roll the right numbers, they double (or triple!) their money FROM THAT PLAYER'S MONEY. If they fail, they give the player the money.

In addition to all this, players are encouraged to negotiate at all times. Don't like the lot you drew? Trade it with someone else. Create a deal to free up some yellow tiles so you can renovate your casino and merge with the one next to you, becoming the boss in the process. There are a lot of possibilities.

The fact that so much of this is dependent on speculation is just icing on the cake. You can expand you casino to increase you VPs, but how long will that investment pay off before it's taken away from you? You can pay a princely sum to get that last red casino tile and anticipate scoring big when it comes up, but what if it doesn't?

The one last item I didn't mention is that players MUST be bosses of ever growing casinos in order to win, because the VP track does an interesting thing where bigger and bigger casino VPs are required to advance a single step. This single design decision provides all the incentive necessary to keep players from sitting on single tile casinos forever.

Overall, Lords of Vegas does everything I wish a trading/ negotiation game did. In our first play I had some concerns about the pacing (due to all the options available on a player's turn, even a quick player can take a little while). Chinatown definitely has the edge as far as feeling like a pure negotiation game, but I see this one having longer legs because it merges interesting boardplay with negotiation and speculation. We'll see after a few plays.

In our game, we started trading early and I was able to consolidate a couple of casinos early. Before long, I had a large one developing in the center of the board and Shemp and Chris found it difficult to stop me. I think in future games, we will all be hanging onto our lots a little more strongly! Along the way, there were some interesting upsets through reorganizations, and a couple of critical merges that swung control of the casinos involved. We also gambled a lot, and it was observed that gambling has strategic opportunities as well by reducing that player's ability to do actions on his turn.

Chinatown should start sweating right about now...

Boomtown

I won't go into much detail, but Boomtown is a card game that mixes auctions with the resource production of Settlers of Catan and cards that are reminiscent of Bang! You have to bid for mining prospects in order to generate money, or try to get cards that can help you or hinder you opponent. One clever mechanism I hadn't seen before was that whoever won the auction picked first and selection proceeded clockwise but the winning bid was distributed to players counter-clockwise. In other words, if you got last pick, you got more money. It's an interesting balancing mechanism.

I enjoyed the game, but it's not stellar. I'll try it again with a different crowd and see how it goes. My only concern is that auction games don't tend to fare well with people who don't game enough to be able to evaluate such things.

Better than El Grande? (Dominant Species)

Kozure purchased Dominant Species recently, and Shemp made it his pick this week.

In Dominant Species, each player represents a type of creature in the animal kingdom (reptile, mammals, birds, insects, arachnids or amphibian). The world slowly expands to reveal various types of terrain while simultaneously the ice age creeps up and turns a subset of the terrain to inhospitable tundra. The various types of creatures struggle to evolve and adapt themselves to the available terrain while simultaneously trying to outnumber the others.

At it's core, Dominant Species is a worker placement/ area majority game. There are a large number of options each turn, from selecting from an available list of adaptations, to exploring the land, to migrating and attacking other creatures. Players select where to place their 3 action pawns (to start) amongst the available options. Afterwards, the actions are resolved. The board play itself felt very much like playing El Grande EXTREME edition... Various mechanisms are pushing many coloured cubes around the board, all in a contest to gain majorities. What sets this game apart is the vast array of options and intertwined mechanics. In particular, the area majority has two facets which must be managed simultaneously: Who has the largest number of animals present, and who is the most adapted to the environment. When scoring occurs, the player with the most animals gets the most points (similar to El Grande), but the player with the best adapted animal gets to draw from several face up cards which can confer powerful bonuses to that player.

With all these extra layers of stuff comes the inevitable longer playtime. in our game, we played a shortened version (Kozure removed a number of cards. 10?) and it still clocked in at 3hrs. Honestly, I didn't really see what would have improved with the full game. There doesn't seem to be long term strategies that would only come to fruition after a certain amount of play (as opposed to Through the Ages, where "idea" strategies take longer to compared to the short term military strategy). Personally, I would probably choose to play the same way next time.

In our session, I played the arachnids, who's special ability is that they can kill one animal (one cube) of their choice every round for free. I took a domination card called "Blight" (I think) which allowed me to eliminate certain resources from the board. The intended effect was to slow down Kozure, the leader at the time. The actual effect was nearly wiping him off the board when extinction was checked. He was reduced to a single cube! Over the course of the game, Kozure saw his early fortunes fall and Shemp took the lead. I managed a comeback, and when the end game points were calculated I won by a handful of points. It was very close.

Overall, I quite enjoyed the game. The theme is well executed, there appears to be multiple players of strategy, there is a good amount of player interaction, etc. It's long though. And it's a thinker, open to definite analysis paralysis. Given the similar feeling to El Grande, I'd likely choose to play that game most of the time just because it's so much shorter. Still, there is lots of depth to explore here, so I'd be happy to play again!

Crowns, Glory and NERDS!!! (Warrior Knights: Crown and Glory, High Frontier)

I've neglected the blog for a few weeks, so I'll play catch-up on our last two gaming sessions.

Two weeks ago, we added the "Crown and Glory" expansion to Warrior Knights and last week we played a game that is so obviously and joyfully nerdy that it's almost cool: High Frontier.

Warrior Knights: Crown and Glory

We've played and enjoyed Warrior Knights a couple of times already, and I've been surprised at how much the "flaws" I had read about the game didn't bother me. Specifically, many people complain that the game's title is misleading and the lack of combat is disappointing. Personally I liked the mix of politics, religion and territory control that the game offered and felt the lessening of combat was a fair trade-off for the additional facets the game offered. Still, there were a few issues that bothered me somewhat. The two biggest ones were the movement limits and the anti-climactic endgame. Actually, the two are related... The lack of movement ability makes the endgame predictable under some circumstances. This means the winner can be obvious going into the last turn and the last little while can be kind of boring.

The new expansion introduces new elements that address both these issues and more. For the movement issue, a new action card allows a player to refresh and re-use an exhausted noble. For the endgame issue, hidden missions are dealt out at the beginning of the game and points are awarded for completing the objective at the end. Both these additions work very well and I wouldn't want to play the game again without them.

Other additions: Technology can be researched and developed. The mercenaries have a few special units that confer powers to the controlling noble. The mercenary track comes into play more frequently due to a tweaked rule. Town levies and fortifications have been added. All good, in my opinion. Tech is probably my favorite due to the special powers they confer and the impact that can have on the game.

The final addition is the "King" variant which grants one player the title of "King" partway through the game. This title comes with a considerable army, an advantage in gaining influence... and a huge target on your head. Suddenly, all players are out to get you to prevent you from getting the bonus influence (and to get it themselves). It's an interesting way to focus attention and keep the game from being a free-for-all. This aspect of our first play through was disappointing because the "quick game" suggested setup is too short. The game ends the turn after someone becomes the King.

In our game, I took a slight lead early and grabbed the title of King. Kozure was doing a great job of generally matching my influence totals but doing it in such a way to not attract attention. Shemp was struggling with the all the new options and had a hard time focussing his strategy. On the last turn of the game, Kozure was banned from the assembly by me and Shemp, and I took to the field with my new kingly army. My lead in influence was not great, but it didn't seem likely that anyone could catch-up. I made a mistake trying to steal a kingdom from Kozure and he exploited it... taking one of mine on his turn while I was on the road. This had the double whammy effect of losing me an influence and making me fail my secret objective. Kozure had met his goal and the game ended with a Kozurian victory. The missions had their intended effect, the last turn was NOT boring!

High Frontier

High Frontier was designed by someone who is clearly passionate about scientific space exploration. And someone nerdy. Definitely nerdy. It's about building rockets out of futuristic technologies and going out to space to explore/ research and claim planets. The map is fantastic. It's a depiction of the solar system and further galaxies and planets, and the routes to get there. A large number of 'futuristic technologies" actually researched for space travel are depicted in the available components for rocket construction. The cards feature little sketch diagrams with explanations of the way these things should work. It's all crazy and geeky and somehow awesome.

But how does it play? Well, I'm not sure. I played the game for 4 hours or so and still didn't really understand all that was going on. This is odd, because there doesn't APPEAR to be anything complicated in the rules, but the tolerances are low and it all felt somewhat opaque. You have to accumulate water tokens to purchase rocket thrusters, robonauts and factories and send them to space. The thrusters are necessary to fly, but the robonauts and factories are necessary to settle a planet. What initially makes the game hard is that you have to build your ship out of parts, and the parts have a certain weight. The better engines are heavy. Getting to where you want to go means balancing fuel capacity, fuel consumption, weight and trajectory... all the while making sure you have enough to get back! Planning your route felt a little like Power Grid to me. Lots of calculating and recalculating... only here if you get it wrong you are stuck floating back from space (this happened to BHarmer at least once). The destinations are laid out such that there are precious few, if any, easy routes. Very precise calculating is necessary. This works for simulating space travel but it's somewhat taxing in a game. Over the course of the game it's possible to develop technologies which make the game suddenly significantly easier. We may have been playing wrong, but it felt to me fairly heavy handed how dramatically the game shifts once a player has one of those advanced components. Once I developed one myself I was quite surprised how all my difficult number crunching became unnecessary. Does this mean the game is all about who gets that first tech? Hard to say... I still think we were doing something wrong. There is also a concept of producing tech from an established colony and selling it back to earth which I never did understand.

My first reaction is that the theme is executed brilliantly, the map is fantastic and the abstraction of scientific info into a playable game fascinating BUT the gameplay itself is frustrating. Is it really possible that the player that gets a particular thruster has THAT great of an advantage over the others? Are we correct that there are only a few viable early game planets? Does the first player to develop an advanced tech have such an advantage that they will automatically win the game?

I continuously felt like I was missing something. Like something wasn't quite adding up. How can the game possibly work with 4-5 players if the viable options are so few? We'll have to explore this one further, if only to see how the whole thing gels together. I confess I didn't really enjoy our first game, but I find the game fascinating nonetheless. I really WANT to like it. The map alone makes me want to OWN it. I find it mind boggling that what we played was the SIMPLE game and that an ADVANCED game ships with it right in the box!

What's that, rustling in the bushes? (Alien Frontiers, Guerilla

It was Kozure's pick this week and he selected a 20 year old Avalon Hill game called Guerilla. As we waited around for the group to be ready to start. we also had a chance to play a two player game of my new copy of Alien Frontiers.

Alien Frontiers

The Boardgame industry appears to have gone through a slump recently as far as interesting new games are concerned. This time last year I would have struggled to name 5 new games that interested me, and for most of this year the situation was the same (this explains why we have actually been playing our back catalogue recently!). Suddenly, though, a number of games are being released which have picked my interest. One of these was Alien Frontiers.

Alien Frontiers is a dice rolling and placing game similar to "To Court the King" or (apparently) "Kingsburg". Each player is given 8 colony tokens and must attempt to make as many VPs as possible, mostly by placing colonies on the planet. On a turn, players roll the dice they have (their "ships") and place the dice according to the space they are trying to activate. For example, it's possible to gather ore or fuel, to learn an alien technology, etc. Learning the alien techs allows players to manipulate their dice, and gaining dominance in an area gives game changing bonuses as well.

To Court the King ultimately fell flat for me, but so far Alien Frontiers has been quite fun. Dice allocation games are not my favorite, but this one I have enjoyed. At first, I felt the game was fun but lacked a certain dynamic necessary to push it over the top. Now, I've played a few more games with my son and we are starting to use the second type of action available on the alien tech cards: when players discard it and a player can move colonies around, exchange, them, etc. Suddenly the game becomes much more interactive and interesting. A fun game, and unique in my collection.

Guerrilla

This is a card game attempting to recreate guerrilla warfare between government and rebels. Unlike many wargame recreations, Guerilla features a couple of game mechanics which makes for a very interesting game without relying on the theme. Before getting into the specifics of the game, it's important to understand at it's heart this is a simple game that involves playing cards that represent government or rebel units to your tableau and using them to attack other players. It's also necessary to understand that all players may control units from both sides and that a player's actual loyalties are secret. There are three possible loyalties: To the government, to the rebels and to no one (meaning that you benefit from having the war and therefore want neither to gain a clear advantage). The mechanic which really makes the game is that as players conduct attacks on other players, the winner of the battle scores points AND the faction of the winning units score the same amount of points. This is important because at the end of the game, if your faction isn't leading (or if the spread in points is too large if you are the mercenaries) your points are HALVED. This means that you will sometimes plan attacks that fail simply so that the faction you want to win gains points. Aside from the units, there are various buildings which grant special powers and VPs to the owner, cards that can be played for "take that" style effects (cutting off supply, assassinations, air raids, etc). The cards are thematic without being overly complex, and the rebels and government factions get different cards which each give them their own feel. It's a well executed combat/ take that style game which is made much more interesting by it's innovative scoring system (not bad for a 20 year old game!).

My main complaints are 1) it's way to long for what it is. The deck should definitely be pruned before we play next. 2) Once you start falling behind, it's hard to get back in... and kinda boring as you watch the others do stuff while you wait. Solving #1 also happens to alleviate #2 so it's not that big of a deal to get over these issues.

As mentioned above, despite my strong start as the government I was beaten down and never really made it back. Some assassinations, cut supplies and a few bad die rolls took me out of contention about midway through the game and I floundered afterwards, knowing it was impossible for me to be a contender. I can point to many errors I made, however, so I'm not blaming the game for my poor showing. I'm sure our next session will be even more fun now that we understand how it works.

Vive la révolution!

The deal is done (I'm the Boss! x2, Santiago)

The are two categories of games that get shelved almost immediately when our numbers dwindle to 3 players: Multiplayer conflict games and negotiation games. With Bharmer joining us in recent weeks, we've had a chance to fix that and play a couple of sessions of Warrior Knights. This week Shemp once again took advantage of the foursome and selected I'm the Boss! and Santiago.

I'm the Boss!

Shemp purchased a shrink wrapped copy of I'm the Boss earlier this year but we haven't been able to get it to the table until today. I was curious if the game would be as much fun the second time around and I'm happy to say that it was. The game started with a bang as Bharmer and I made a deal before he had even selected the starting space (technically illegal, I now know). He placed the marker on a deal that needed exactly our two investors and he proclaimed that the deal was done before anyone could react. It was fun, and it set the tone for the next few deals, but it became somewhat boring after a while. We then made a house rule (or began respecting the game rules, possibly) and mandated that all cards needed to be on the table before the Boss could claim that a deal was done. The game then turned into the "flurry of cards and yelling" kind of bargaining we all remembered and it became fun again. I was particularly proud of landing a deal where I had no cards to contribute (the deal required two investors and I had neither, I offered one share to Shemp and Bharmer for their contribution and it was accepted). Good times.

We played two games, with Kozure sneakily pulling a win in the first game (seriously, no one thought he had that much money) and then me winning the second (but with Kozure once again coming a close second though no one saw it coming).

Santiago

We finished off the evening with Santiago. The highlight of the game was the turn where Bharmer was the overseer and there was little incentive for anyone to bribe him for anything in particular (there were open canals already). He was offered "a punch in the face", "yo ass" and something about his mother. We are normally a respectable group, but apparently we slipped a little there.

In the end, he had the last laugh because he won the game!

God is jam, and the apostles are jelly! (Warrior Knights)

This week we played Warrior Knights for a second time. Since I didn't really give a very good overview of the game last week, I'll do a quick one now:

Warrior Knights is a very ambitious conquest game that attempts to weave many facets into a single game. In addition to the typical combat for territory, players must also consider religion, politics, mercenaries and expeditions!

On the surface, things seem very much like a RISK clone. There is a map with regions and some castles. Players place between 1 and 4 Knights on the board and start trying to expand their territory.

The structure of the game cleverly manages to reign in the complexity and makes the game play surprisingly simple. Players have 2 copies of 6 different cards in their hand, each representing an action they can take (gaining votes, gaining faith, moving units, hiring mercenaries, etc) . Each game turn, they must select 3 pairs of cards and put them in three different piles. After everyone has selected their three pairs of cards, "neutral actions" are added to each pile and each pile is then individually shuffled. Once this is done, the cards are resolved one by one. In other words, players know that they will get two actions in each "pile" but they don't know in what order they will come up.

When the neutral cards come up, different kinds of things can happen. An expedition to a far away land might be launched, and players have an opportunity to invest in it. A random event might be drawn from a deck (often assigned to a player by the current leader of the church). An opportunity might come up to reinforce the cities on the board or recover some casualties. etc, etc.

A third important mechanic is that one a card is used, it goes to one of three special discard stacks, either "taxation", "assembly" or "wages". When these discard stacks equal twice the number of players, they triggers special phases such as gaining money from your cities, having to pay your troops or having to gather at an assembly in order to vote on issues.

All together, there is a lot going on but the gameplay is not that complex (as long as at least one player knows how to handle the administration of the game). On the flipside, having so many different things going on at once means that each individual aspect of the game sees little development in a session. The game has a significant luck/ chaos factor to it (events can have a big impact, combat is decided by card draws, turn order is decided by card draws, the items to vote on at the assembly can favour one player more than another). Still, there are typically ways to mitigate the luck so it's up to the players to put the odds on their side.

Overall, I felt the game was quite engaging and fun. My biggest complaint would be that the last turn feels quite anticlimactic because there is very little worth doing except conquering yet only a fraction of the cards you have allow you to do that. Further, the limited development in the game means that if you are not close to winning there is very little that can be done to come back in the game.

In this session, Shemp and I managed to get into a spat before we had even placed all our pieces. I had placed at a port town near his fortress so he placed near mine. He attacked my knight on the first round and destroyed him and his army. In retribution, I attacked the town he was holding and won. Luckily for both of us we decided to put our differences behind us and try to focus on the two others that were benefiting from our combat.

As the religious leader for most of the game, I was able to direct several bad events to the players that displeased me. Before we had made our truce, I had Shemp declared a heretic (apparently because he said that God was made of jam) and then declared again (because he said the apostles were made of jelly). Shemp controlled the assembly for much of the game. Meanwhile, Kozure and Bharmer were accumulating influence faster than we could because they hadn't yet suffered any losses.

As the game drew to a close, we all decided that Kozure was going to win and tried to take him down. We hurt him, but not bad enough... Kozure won by a point.

If I had to compare Warrior Knights to another game we have played I would tend to pick Conquest of the Empire. The gameplay is quite different, but that game has also made an effort to incorporate events, politics and combat. Between the two, I'd say I prefer this one. The political aspect work much better, for one.

Anyway, looking forward to playing it again, hopefully not too far into the future!

Kenigets (Warrior Knights)

Last week we played Warrior Knights for the first time. This is a game I received in a math trade, and a stellar example of what I look for in such a trade: lose a game you don't like for a game you are interested in but would never buy. Warrior Knights was too long and opinion is too divided for me to spend money on it, but a trade was perfect.

We are playing again tomorrow evening, so I will wait until the next post to go into detail but I will say this: Warrior Knights is an extremely ambitious design. It mixes RISK like conquest with religion, politics, negotiation, drafting armies, events, exploration, and I'm sure I'm missing a few. The obvious downfall of this design direction is that there can be too little of any one thing to feel satisfying. In our first play, I'd characterize my opinion as mixed. It does everything more successfully than I expected, but there is a sense that some aspects of the game feel underdeveloped (not in a game design sense, but in a game development sense... though I suppose one leads into the other). There is significant chaos in the game, but some design choices help to minimize it's impact. All in all, I'm cautiously optimistic that this game will find a permanent place in my collection.

In this session, Bharmer started with all four of his knights, whereas Kozure and Shemp had three and I only played two. All approaches seemed feasible, and in the end Kozure and I were tied for influence and Kozure won on the tiebreaker.

Let me guess, you're in the light (Macao, Mr. Jack x3)

It was just Shemp and I this week. I brought a bag of two player compatible games, and ultimately we decided to give Macao another go and revisit Mr. Jack.

Macao

Surely this would be the session where I would manage to break Shemp's 100% win streak, right? Wrong. It was close, though. I had many delivery doublers, and a fantastic card that allowed me to get an additional cube in each colour I drew that round (powerful near the end when everyone else is just drawing 1 cube). My downfall was an inability to connect city spaces, because otherwise I felt like I was doing ok. I lost by 2 points or so, meaning it was tense even through end-game scoring.

The flow of the game was odd: Some numbers weren't coming up so we both were navigating with windroses that had a number of empty spaces. Conversely, this led to turns with large numbers of cubes (we saw a couple of occasions where full player boards were emptied in a single turn).

This is a great game for 2!

Mr. Jack

We played three sessions. In each case, the player playing the cops won, but a few were pretty close. One game was aborted early as Shemp, playing Mr. Jack, moved all but one piece in the light. I remarked sarcastically "Let me guess, you're in the light" and then he slapped his forehead. He answered that he was in the dark. Having been bused so early, we aborted and started again.

Mr. Jack is consistently enjoyable as a two player game. It seems much harder to win as Mr. Jack, but the chase is still a lot of fun!

Midway = Half Way (The Fires of Midway)

The history of games played at WAGS is peppered with the occasional light wargame because Kozure likes to sneak 'em in once in a while to keep us honest. Although I enjoy some wargames, the card based light wargames (like Zero!, Airwar:Pacific, Naval Battles, etc) tend to have a couple of factors that keep me from enjoying them fully. Often they are highly luck driven and/ or seem somewhat unbalanced, but more often than not it's the fact that they are longer and more complicated than the weight of the game warrants. Still, I'm always happy to try a new game out and it's a time honoured tradition to allow the dictator to select that he/she wants so we came together this week to blow up some boats, planes and strategically significant microscopic islands.
That, and you never know because the next one might be a gem!

The Fires of Midway attempts to recreate the titular battle in a simplified card game, featuring arial combat and bombing/ torpedo runs against enemy ships. There is a central board which identifies the location of the American and Japanese boats, since distance is a very important concept of the game. Players each have a force consisting of boats and aircraft, represented by cards. On their turns, players must make a choice between making an aggressive attack, hanging back and repairing the ship or a mix of both. Once the choice is made, the planes fly to their target and a battle takes place. Players earn VPs for damaging or sinking enemy ships and for shooting down a specific number of enemy planes. As the game progresses, managing between the fires and leaks on your ships and the need for pressing the attack becomes more of an issue.

On my first turn, I took a couple of planes out and found BHarmer's ship hiding behind low cloud cover. My middling squadron had apparently eaten their wheaties that morning because they kicked the tar out of them. He spent the rest of the game fighting fires and watched as my partner Shemp came and did a repeat performance on his other ship. Over the course of the game, many of the casualties the americans suffered were the result of sending short range planes beyond their range more than anything! Things evened up a little before the end but overall it was pretty one sided and we won decisively. Kozure tells us the results mirror history relatively closely.

I had fun playing The Fires of Midway. For whatever reason, I got into it more than I often do and the random elements succeeded in making the game exciting. The game complexity and game length criticisms are valid, though. Our 4 player game wasn't over when we ended it 3+ hours later. There are a number of rules which felt like they could be dropped without sacrificing much in the gameplay, such as an elaborate targeting sub-mechanic which involves card play but ultimately only determines who gets to pick between two attack resolution tables.

Wishing for Gold (Pandemic, Beowulf, Dominion: Intrigue)

Still three players.

Pandemic

Since Pandemic was dropped from the lineup last week, I brought it again. Shemp picked it as our first game and we went with the mutation challenge (a.k.a. purple cube expansion). We had the dispatcher, the troubleshooter and the researcher.

Side note: Troubleshooter= awesome.

Things started out pretty leisurely, actually. Red was cured quickly and blue followed. The troubleshooter's ability to see where problems are going to be and then go there is very powerful. Suddenly, things started getting hairy and we were struggling to stay on top. We managed to get the four basic cures done, but purple still eluded us. I had five cards to spend to cure it, but none featured cities infected by purple, so I couldn't finish it. We drew the action card that allowed us to fish into the discard and drew what we needed to finish the game. After we won, I checked the infection cards to see what I would have drawn at the end of my turn... we would have lost the game because of an outbreak of Yellow in Johannesburg.

Close. Fun.

Beowulf

Beowulf made a rare repeat appearance. After last week's experiment to see if it played well with three (it did), it was nice to play it again. I unfortunately was unable to repeat last week's win, however. As the game was coming to a conclusion, I felt confident I would win the "battle with the dragon" episode. Kozure had pulled out, and it was me and Shemp left. I had the "All Iron Shield" (4 swords) and "Sword Hrunting" (3 swords), plus a few others. I lost. We had a good laugh at the odd turn of events, and it cost me a significant amount of points, but Shemp had a commanding lead regardless and it wouldn't have affected the outcome of the game.

As usual, this was a lot of fun. It's a nice mix of card management and luck.

Dominion: Intrigue

The closer for the evening was an all-intrigue Dominion. Shemp selected a deck called "Secrets and betrayal" (or something like that). All the cards with names like "Saboteur", "Shanty Town", etc, were in the deck. I won the game, so I hate saying that I played semi-randomly, but that's what happened. There was a memorable round where I drew my wishing well and wished for a "gold" treasure and drew it (remarkable because I only had one). I purchased a province and then immediately had to trash it as Shemp played his saboteur and my newly shuffled deck happened to have it on top. Easy come, easy go, I guess. I narrowly beat Kozure and we had a discussion afterwards about the danger of buying the Harem cards (2 VPs/ 2 treasure) near the end of the game... Duchies are worth 3 VPs for the same price but are dead weight. I had been buying them for some time, thinking the game was ending but it took longer than I thought and my deck was becoming inefficient (Shemp mentioned that the same thing was happening to him).

I've heard good things about the upcoming Prosperity expansion. We'll have to see how that plays out.

Three's Company

For a variety of reasons, our attendance is most often three players these days. This is unfortunate as a good part of my collection is aimed either at two or four/five. Consequently, I frequently have trouble picking when it's my turn to dictate, because I/we don't have many games that are good with three that are also liked universally by the common triumvirate of Agent East, Shemp and me... or so I thought.

Shemp took the time to cross-index games recommended/best with three at BGG with the games that are in our collective collection. For the record these are (BGG ranking / title / playing time):

Best with Three

Light

140 Through the Desert 45 mins
142 Carcassonne: The City 30 mins
195 China 45 mins
251 Hey! That's My Fish! 20 mins
261 Colossal Arena 60 mins
309 Can't Stop 30 mins

Medium

7 Dominion 30 mins
29 Ra 60 mins
123 Yspahan 60 mins
146 Thunderstone 60 mins
155 Blue Moon City 60 mins

Heavy

2 Agricola 120 mins
4 Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization 240 mins
6 Le Havre 150 mins
9 Caylus 120 mins

Recommended with Three

Light

47 Galaxy Trucker 60 mins
48 Ticket to Ride: Europe 60 mins
57 Ticket to Ride 45 mins
68 Carcassonne 60 mins
87 Ingenious 45 mins
97 Citadels 60 mins
131 Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game 90 mins
137 PitchCar 30 mins
141 For Sale 20 mins
154 Nexus Ops 90 mins
160 Bohnanza 45 mins
186 Formula D 60 mins
203 Wits & Wagers 25 mins
204 Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age 30 mins
219 Formula Dé 120 mins
227 Liar's Dice 15 mins
229 Zooloretto 45 mins

Medium

12 Race for the Galaxy 60 mins
22 Stone Age 60 mins
23 Pandemic 60 mins
27 Railroad Tycoon 120 mins
32 Chaos in the Old World 90 mins
38 Small World 80 mins
50 The Settlers of Catan 90 mins
55 Space Alert 30 mins
61 Taj Mahal 90 mins
69 In the Year of the Dragon 75 mins
70 Acquire 90 mins
74 Modern Art 45 mins
78 Tikal 120 mins
80 Cosmic Encounter 60 mins
92 The Pillars of the Earth 120 mins
93 Chicago Express 60 mins
96 Genoa 120 mins
108 Ghost Stories 60 mins
114 RoboRally 120 mins
115 Cyclades 60 mins
120 Glory to Rome 60 mins
121 Fury of Dracula 120 mins
139 Vegas Showdown 75 mins
166 Medici 60 mins
175 Antike 120 mins
180 Macao 90 mins
193 Domaine 90 mins
221 Lowenherz 90 mins
248 Lord of the Rings 60 mins

Heavy

1 Puerto Rico 90 mins
5 Power Grid 120 mins
11 Tigris & Euphrates 90 mins
13 Steam 120 mins
16 Age of Steam 120 mins
18 The Princes of Florence 90 mins
21 Goa 90 mins
25 Shogun 150 mins
30 Imperial 120 mins
51 Arkham Horror 180 mins
128 Maharaja: Palace Building in India 90 mins

An evening with Stephen Feld (Macao, In the Year of the Dragon, Jungle Speed x2)

This is a couple of weeks late, but we've moved recently and I haven't had the time to write. This week we had Bharmer back, making it a foursome.

As Kozure mentioned in his recent post, we played Macao, In the Year of the Dragon and Jungle Speed. I wanted to play both Feld games because I really admire him as a designer, depsite his inability to choose compelling themes. The combination of strategy, interesting mechanisms and ... pain, have produced two games I like very much (I haven't tried any of his other designs).

Macao

Kozure was determined to improve on his past showings in this game, and early on it looked like he would achieve his goal with a win. He had a commanding lead, but as is customary with this game Shemp came from behind and stole the win (this time, beating Kozure by a single point). I don't exactly understand how a game like this can be so dominated by a single player, but so far Shemp's record stands at 100% after +/- 5 plays. Bharmer had just learned the game and therefore came in last, but this is the kind of game where that is expected. Not sure how to explain my poor showing, though!

In the Year of the Dragon

Finally got this second game by Stephan Feld to the table. Another great title, but significantly more compact in it's playtime. This is the epitome of a great euro in my book: short play time, high strategy, low luck. Feld has a hard time coming up with compelling themes, but the gameplay is top notch. I won this one by keeping my end of turn points high and making sure to dominate the fireworks points. For some reason, I tend to do very well at this one contrary to my winless streak at Macao.

Jungle Speed

I had hoped to play Pandemic as the last game of the evening. We didn't have time, and I'll admit I was disappointed at first. That is, I was disappointed until Kozure suggest we play Jungle Speed. We played twice and had a blast as usual. What a fun game.

Undefeated

Well, Shemp pulled off another come-from-behind win in Macao, which makes it 5 wins for 5 plays for him. 100%. Undefeated.

Impressive... most impressive.

We also played In the Year of the Dragon (Easy won) and Jungle Speed (Bharmer and Easy won one each).

I had to content myself with two (close) second place finishes in the non-filler games.

Which brings me to the interesting question... which games are we, as members of this group, good at?

There are many games which I enjoy but I'm not necessarily good at. Power Grid, for example, I usually come in the middle of the pack (used to be middle-high end, but recent plays have left me lower than usual). Conversely, one of the games which I almost put in the "will not play willingly" category, Phoenicia, I actually had my own personal highest win rate for. What does it say about me that the game I win most often I happen to dislike? Fortunately, (or maybe unfortunately for my win record), Phoenicia has been traded away.

I think I've got a reasonably good win rate at Railroad Tycoon. I enjoy it, which usually assists in getting me to play better. I'm also usually pretty decent at Tikal.

As mentioned in previous entries, when El Grande was introduced to the group, I had a fairly high win ratio. Over time, that edge has been lost and now I'm frequently middling.

Shemp, as mentioned, is trending high wins at Macao.

This weekend, at TABSCON, I had the opportunity to play Race for the Galaxy with two people who play it a lot. I was creamed. Seriously creamed, twice in a row. Point spreads of something like 70 or 80 to my 30-ish. I felt like... well, I'd use some sports analogy here but I don't know sports teams well enough... the Nigerian Woman's Hockey Team up against Canada... or Canada's soccer team up against Spain. I thought I was not bad at RftG, but either I just had two seriously bad runs of luck, or those guys are super-geniuses. Now, granted, we were playing with two expansions, one of which I hadn't played before, but I was not in the running here.

One nice thing about going to places like TABSCON, it exposes you to playing skill levels outside your "regular" group. Generally I've found, much to my satisfaction, I do pretty well against other groups, save in games where it's obvious they play a particular game a lot.

I think it's clear, if you're a regular reader, that I'm not a "play only for the win" kinda guy. I try to win, for sure, but for me, it's the social atmosphere, friendly competition and sense of thematic engagement that draws me to board gaming.

But sometimes... sometimes... I just want that first place finish, dang it!

Hey WAGsters (or readers), what are the games that you're good at?

Military advantage = win (Through the Ages)

Life's become real busy lately, so writing this blog is tougher than it used to be. Sorry if things are getting sporadic.

Last week we played Through the Ages, a game I like some aspects of but which ultimately is not one of my favorites. One of the reasons is because I dislike the aggression system, and another is related to the first: In my experience, the player who gets the lead in military strength wins and the player who is in last has a really rough road ahead of them.

Now, I should add that in the games I've played, we have often truncated the game for lack of time. It's entirely possible that something in the third age balances out trying an idea strategy or a culture strategy against the advantage of going military in the first two ages. Maybe those strategies require longer to mature, for example.

Anyway, I was the lucky beneficiary of a winning military strength strategy. I started with Homer and tried to focus on always being in the lead for strength and also having solid culture generation. I built the railroads and discovered professional sports and enlisted James Cook to give me massive culture through the many colonies I had controlled (using the aforementioned military advantage). Shemp got beat up on a few times. Sorry about that buddy.

Kozure did mention when we wrapped up that his engine was just starting to ramp up and he would have benefited greatly from playing out the third age. Who knows?

Threeny Madness! (Ra, Glory to Rome, Beowulf, Dominion)

Shemp's pick this week, and he went for Threeny Madness (a play on "weeny madness", the name we used to give Magic decks that focussed on many small creatures). Turns out many of the games played aren't particularly "weeny", but what can you do?

Ra

First up was Ra, with Tilli playing instead of Kozure. Auction games are often subject to groupthink, and so I think everyone was somewhat surprised at how differently me and Shemp evaluated things compared to Tilli (who would typically play outside our group). In particular, it is my habit to purchase many smaller lots early rather than go long and hope for quantity. At first, it looked like it was a losing strategy... Tilli had a huge first round and Shemp and I scored very little. As the game wore on, Ra looked with dissaproval at those wanting quantity over quality and rewarded me with an enormous last round for the win.

Glory to Rome

Kozure stepped back in and Shemp chose perennial favorite Glory to Rome. I've often said that this game is characterized by a new "unbalanced" combo every game. Just to prove me wrong, this session didn't have that. We were all building away and minding our own business when suddenly all the building sites had been used and the game ended. Another odd thing: None of us had a single piece of material in the vault. Shemp thought he had me based on the influence I had gathered from building, but what he hadn't noticed was that I had built the ... (I don't recall the name, but it gives me 1 VP for each 2 materials in the stockpile). This sneakery allowed me to surpass Shemp by 1 and win the game.

Beowulf

A few weeks ago we were wondering if Beowulf with 3 would be any good. Having now played it, I must say that it is! Knizia distributed the episodic rewards very well so that there is as much interest in the 3 player auction as the 4 or 5 player.

In the early episodes, luck was shining on Shemp as he was making out quite well at all the risking challenges. Kozure also appeared to have a persistently large hand of cards. I struggled early in the game but game but found my footing about a third of the way. Through sheer dumb luck I won an episode with a single card from my hand. This reward allowed me to snowball my successes and soon I felt like I was doing really well. Going into the battle with the dragon, I had a hand of 10-15 cards ALL of which could be used in the battle (i.e. just fists and axes and wilds). I don't often do well at this game, but clearly this was my evening!

Dominion

We ended, as we often do, with Dominon. Shemp noticed that the was a themed deck called "Hand Madness!", so being unable to resist the tie in with the evening's theme he chose it. As you'd expect, it's a deck that has players manipulating the number of cards in their own and their opponent's hands quite a lot. Dominion is another game I typically don't do well in, but unfortunately this time the result was in line with the odds... I came in last after an unsuccessful attempt to pull off a bureaucrat + Council room combo. It didn't help that Shemp was constantly playing Militias to keep my handsize down. I unfortunately do not remember who actually did win, however.

Don't you understand the meaning of "Yield"? (Goa, China)

Strange story: I was listening to my "A Game of Thrones" audiobook as I arrived at Shemp's house. Shortly before I parked the car, a character says "Don't you understand the meaning of "Yield"? to John Snow after he goes into a rage during a practice duel. Upon entering Shemp's house, he tells me about how he had to yell at a guy in a car that almost ran him off the road on his bicycle. He mentioned that he had to yell "Don't you understand the meaning of "Yield" ? I don't know, to me it was weird.

We went "old skool" this week. I was hoping to get Goa, Puerto Rico and China played, but we only had time for Goa and China

Goa

Goa is a game that often gets put temporarily on the trade pile, but always comes off because it plays well from 2-4 and that's unusual for a game of this type. Also, it's theme is particularly uninspiring and therefore rarely gets off the shelf (it's been over two years...). Finally, and probably most damning, it's a good game but too bland to be very memorable amidst all the games we have (it's pretty close to playing a spreadsheet). Despite all this I enjoy it when it does comes out for the pure efficiency engine gameplay (though with auctions and an odd dash of luck introduced with the expeditions). I like it. It can stay.

Kozure seemed to be running away with the game, and Shemp clearly felt that he was doing very poorly throughout. In the end, Kozure did win, but Shemp and I were tied only 3 points behind.

China

Not much to say here. We are constantly surprised and impressed how much game there is here for the 30 minutes it takes. I pursued advisors more aggressively than Shemp and Kozure, and that won it for me.

Pus n' brains! (Chaos in the Old World, Unpublished Prototype)

Pablo joined us once more, so we took advantage of the occasion to play our first four player game of Chaos in the Old World. We also played another of Kozure's game creations... this one being a zombie dice game (which, as usual, I won't describe here in any detail).

Chaos in the Old World

Finally! A four player game. We gave Pablo Khorne since he is, on the surface, the easiest to play (and so best for newbies). I drew Nurgle, Shemp Tzeentch and Kozure Slaanesh.

I decided to concentrate on ruining one or two of the populous regions on the Board. Since warpstones were seeded to the north at the start, Shemp spent most of the game there (magicking and such). Khorne started in the high value central regions and Kozure's Slaanesh was busy sexing it up in the south. This arrangement squeezed me between Khorne's axe and Tzeetch's spells.
The Empire and Kislev were my targets and I focussed on getting lots of cultists there in order to rapidly corrupt them. I also added a single token to Troll Country and Bretonnia. Kozure looked like he was running away with it in VPs, but Shemp was doing quite well in the "Dial ticks" category. I was a close third, but I was banking on the ruination points putting me in front. On the fourth or fifth turn, three regions corrupted at the same time. Since I was in first place for two of them, I netted over 30 points and won the game.

I hadn't really realized how powerful ruining regions could be as a strategy. We haven't done much of this in the past, but after this game I expect to see it again. Pablo had difficulty keeping up with us since it was his first time, but by the second half he was doing quite well (with Khorne, it's almost a waste of time trying to win on VPs... better to get dial ticks and beat others down). The game play is a great mix of the euro and american style. The placement rules and action points make for a very strategic game, but the card effects and dice rolls keep things interesting. I look forward to playing this again with four experienced players.

L7+L7=L14 (Louis XIV, Glory to Rome)

Kozure dug into the back catalogue for his selection this week... two oldies but goodies: Louis XIV and Glory to Rome.

A quick search on the blog reveals that it has been almost exactly 3 years since we've last played Louis (November 2009 for Glory to Rome). As you might imagine, a rules refresher was in order.

Louis XIV

It's always interesting going back to an older game after a little while. I always felt like Louis XIV was a solid and interesting design, but during this session I had the distinct feeling that I was playing a somewhat convoluted version of El Grande meets... something with hidden missions (Princes of Florence? Traders of Genoa?). Still very enjoyable, and nice and short for this type of game. For a game that depends on the deal of the cards, I felt like there was a good amount of control available, too. It's not a game that I feel I need to play often, but it deserves to come out more than it does.

I had a very good game. I was able to complete my four missions every round, as well as accumulating a number of extra tokens which gave me shields at the end. This is not a game that lends itself to session reports, so I won't go into detail. I won by a significant margin, though. HA!

Glory to Rome

It was the return of the least broken "broken game" there is. Every session, everyone points the finger at a new card or combo and says that it's hopelessly unbalanced. What was it this time? I built the Colosseum, which allows me to take from other player's clientele when I use the legionnaire AND PLACE THE CLIENT IN MY VAULT. It's very powerful if none of the other players have built palisades. I was simultaneously filling my vault and reducing the other player's ability to play multiple actions in a turn. In all honesty, I felt my chances and a second landslide win in a single evening were pretty good when the draw deck ran out. Kozure surprised me with a rather rich vault that he was sneakily filling the whole game, but it wasn't enough... I did win but it was a much narrower victory than anticipated.

Those sneaky Kozurians.

Hannibal, you still there? (Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage)

We tried to play another session of Hannibal. People say it can be played in two hours, but we would be happy if we could just get it down to three. This time we made it further into the game than ever before, but after four hours our time was up.

I took the role of Hannibal for the second time, and so Kozure was Rome. Early naval advantages (Allied with Syracuse, allied with Macedonians) allowed me to enter into Sicily right away. Hannibal went north as always, and made it through the Alps relatively unscathed. Kozure met me in the north and the result was a bloodbath; Hannibal died after a couple of combats (I unfortunately was not able to pull off any "hail Mary" unlikely wins like I did last game). I would have to find out if a Carthage win without Hannibal was possible...

Mago had been sent to accompany Hasdrubal in Sicily early on. As reinforcements accumulated in New Carthage, the seaworthy general ferried back and sailed to eastern Italy with a full 10 point army. Scipio Africanus soon arrived in Rome with his force of 5. I thought if Mago could confront him my numerical advantage might beat him. Instead, I chose to do a quick rampage along the eastern coast, dropping off soldiers as I went with an eye to converting political power, winning two provinces in the process just before winter. It was reckless and stupid, though. Kozure played a minor campaign and brought Scipio to me overrunning all the units I left behind and then hit me on both flanks with his consul (don't remember the name). Mago and his army were decimated, along with Carthage's hopes of winning the game. Oh well.

We had to call it, but given another turn or so Rome's win was all but inevitable..

Pretty close to a full game, yet a real complete game eludes us. I plan to keep trying. I am very much enjoying the game, and I like how it feels both like a war game and unlike one. The flow of events has a distinct impact on the game, and the best course of action changes along with them. The balance between using the cards as events vs action points is often a difficult choice. Fun, fun, fun.

Ra, Ra, Mexica! (Ra: The dice game, Mexica, Ra)

My sister's husband, Pablo, recently immigrated to Canada and since he enjoys boardgames we invited him to join us. Although he isn't familiar with many of our games, he had previously played and enjoyed Tikal and Memoir '44 so I felt he'd have no problem. Four players at WAGS? Fantastic!

Ra: The Dice Game

This was my second time playing this game, but for Shemp and Pablo it was a first. Still a fun game, but this is definitely a shallower experience than the original. I won on the strength of a game long dominance of Pharaohs and a huge score from pyramids.

Mexica

The first half of this session saw a far more structured development pattern than we've seen in recent games. The two extremities of the island where being planned with southern Ontario like regularity (rectangular zones, each stacked side by side). When the second stage began, good planning fell by the wayside... strange and impractical districts popped up and made movement very difficult. There was a large unfounded area on one side of the island that I seeded with a number of buildings, hoping for a points grab as other players would enclose them for me (i.e. the Shemp tactic). Unfortunately, my placement left much of the area undevelopable so the game ended with unplaced Calpuli tiles... a first for us. Shemp won by a significant margin, with Kozure in second place.

Ra

For the sake of compare and contrast, we ended with Ra. I often go for a quick grab of anything that looks valuable when playing with more than 3 players, so I found myself with a decent haul quickly in the first era. This left me with no bidding tiles before most had even spent one, but it worked... the other players did not manage to get much in the remaining time before the Ra tiles ended the era. I had a similarly successful second era and despite a weak third I won the game.

Pablo says he preferred the dice game. Personally, I feel the original has a lot more going for it and probably has much longer legs. That said, the dice version is certainly more accessible since auction games are typically not forgiving to new players who don't yet know how to evaluate the worth of each tile.

Ships & Shipping (Cyclades, Macao)

Very late on this one.

We played Cyclades and Macao.

Cyclades

I take back everything I said about Cyclades and Risk. I hope no one actually read this and used that comparison to make a purchasing decision (highly unlikely, I know). I was trying to communicate that it was an approachable and simple conquest game but I took the comparison too far. The game is simple enough, there is rolling of dice and the theme is conquest, but the gameplay is all about auctions, timing and combos.

We've now played three times, and have each tried the three different starting positions. They seem balanced enough. Kozure surprised us all and was within one round of winning quite quickly (having built a metropolis and owning three philosopher cards). He won the bid for Athena and built the last metropolis... but could he make it to the end of the round intact?

No.

Shemp won Mars and swept in to steal one of Kozure's metropolises. In a subsequent turn, I stole the other (leaving Kozure with none). I was able to sneak in and build my last building for the win.. Since I was last, no one could stop me and won.

This is a great game. For the first half, players are trying to get their income going and get into position. Then, suddenly everyone is on the verge of winning and all players must carefully keep an eye on each other, the order that the gods are coming up and the creatures which are available. Some pretty crafty sequences can be pulled off, and much of the fun I have with the game is derived from this aspect. As an example, this is how I played my last turn for the win (more or less, it's been a while):

I had no metropolises, and only three buildings. I bid on Aries. I purchased the Griffon to steal half of Shemp's gold (which was a lot), I then used Polyphemus to "scare" my boats away from an island, allowing me to create a chain of ships to an island containing a metropolis. I purchased a number of units, crossed to the other island and conquered it. I purchased the red building, but it was not the one I needed to get my second metropolis so I used the Chimera to activate Cyclops's ability to change a building's colour, giving me the second metropolis for the win. That was fun.

Macao

Another game about timing and combos, Macao has seen a lot of table time recently (which is fine by me). I snagged a couple of ware doublers early on and made it my goal to gain the lion's share of my points this way. I was a distant first place for much of the game, but I suffered a late game stall as I ran out of things to deliver. I only had a few other activated buildings, a couple of baronesses, so I was not sure what to do. Shemp was coming on strong and on my last turn I simply took a quick delivery and the game was over. As bonus points were tallied, Shemp overtook me by +/- 10 points for the win (AGAIN). He then pointed out that a different move would have won me the game! (I could have built a different building, thus given me a different ware, which would have truncated his chain in the city and robbed him of some points in his last delivery. I guess he got me back for pointing out a similar missed opportunity in Cyclades a few months ago!

Another great game. This and Cyclades could very well be my picks for best games this year.

Try the left flank (Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage)

Years after I purchased the edition of Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage, I still haven't played a full game. I've tried a few times, but each time we run long and abort. I even received the fabled pre-order bonus, the general miniatures (all off their bases, but otherwise intact)... and haven't played since.

I was therefore surprised and thrilled when Kozure called me up on saturday and suggested that he drop by and we give the game another try.

We set up and I drew Carthage (in our previous games I've always played Rome). It's obviously a whole different ballgame playing this faction: The Carthaginians receive all their generals up front, including the formidable Hannibal, whereas the Romans only have 2-3 generals at a time (and the quality of these varies considerably). When I played Rome, I felt that I had to wait for Carthage to act first, since it seemed to easy for them to overwhelm me if I struck first. I therefore played it safe and spent my time converting the tribe markers as I waited. Carthage, on the other hand, feels more "wide open" strategically... though obviously their restrictions on sea movement and sieging create their own kinds of limits.

Early on, Kozure played an event which prevented me from moving any units out of Africa. Slightly hobbled, I took Mago to Sicily and Hannibal north. Kozure landed a beachhead at Massilia. Things started to go badly for Kozure as Hannibal won several battles against the Romans there. My secret was attacking Kozure's left flank. No matter his hand size, I would go left and penetrate his defense before long (shouldn't have worked, but hey). Further disaster struck as Kozure holed up a significant force in Syracuse and I played the event that hands Cathage that city and destroys everyone in it...

Other fortuitous draws on my part and a dearth of 3 OP cards for Kozure meant that I was making steady ground. We did call the game before it was over, but at that time Sicily was almost entirely in Carthaginian control and Hannibal had brought a rag-tag band across the alps and was busy converting political control across the north and east of Italy.

It was looking good for me, but Kozure was not out yet. All my forces were paper thin by this point. I would have been unable to do much further damage, except for more political conversion. In the next turn, the Romans could take their reinforcements at Rome and potentially steamroll over me. There was still another game turn before Scipio Africanus was destined to arrive on the scene.

We promised ourselves that we would play again within a few weeks and actually finish a game. Here's hoping.

N.D.A. (unplublished prototype, Ra: The dice game)

This week, we played a game that Kozure designed. Since it's for a competition I won't talk about the details.

We ended the evening with a few rounds of Ra: The dice game... a father's day gift Kozure had recently received.

Ra: The dice game

From the recent craze that saw a number of boardgames get dice versions, we've previously played and enjoyed Roll through the ages. Ra is one of my favorite games, so how did I like the dice game? In short, I thought it was quite good. It's funny, though... the game goes through great lengths to replicate many aspects of the original, from the elements to the scoring, and yet it doesn't feel anything like it. That shouldn't be surprising, though; the original is a pure auction game and this has none. Anyway, the game feels closer to traditional dice games than Roll through the Ages does because the scoring is really based on getting certain set combinations (ex: If you are accumulating rivers, you need to get a triple river on a turn to "flood" it, you need at least three "civilization" results to satisfy the civ. requirement, etc). There are some board elements, and of course every time RA comes up the era is nearing it's close. Anyway, it works well and is quite fun for a 10-15 minute dice game.

More More Martin and Macao (Steam, Macao)

I've signed up to playtest some new Steam maps, and this week I brought a new three player map to the group. I also brought along Macao, since I'm finding that game quite intriguing at the moment.

In an email exchange prior to games night, I discovered that Kozure wasn't particularly enamoured with the game. Shemp also confessed that his enitial enthusiasm for the game had waned. I was pretty surprised, because I still love the game. It pushes many of the same buttons as El Grande (the puzzle aspect of most effectively pushing wooden cubes around) but it plays with a wider number of players and has lots of expansions to keep it fresh. Shemp mentioned he wasn't thrilled with all the quirky new rules that come along with each expansion board, and Kozure prefers Railroad Tycoon's more forgiving and less constrained feel. Both said they like it enough to play it, but there was definitely little actual enthusiasm.

Isn't it funny how differently players can feel about games. We've been playing together for over 6 years and although we all enjoy a broad section of games together, I wonder if we were to make top 10 lists how many games would end up on all three.

I won't dwell long on how the games played. The Steam map played very well for three players, which is not really the case with the boards included with the game. I consider it a success and would choose to play this one again if we were three. Macao was characterized by dice that rolled very high, all the time. I recovered from a shaky start and managed to come within ONE POINT of Shemp. So. Close.

Kozure does not appear to be terribly enamoured with Macao either (though he says he thinks it's a good game, just not one of his favorited). I'll certainly grant that the theme is rather weak in this one (though still better than some). Probably on par with Puerto Rico theme-wise. I continue to be very interested in the way you have to plan ahead, all the while behaving tactically every turn and trying to get combos going. Very engaging.

More Martin (Perikles, Bacchus Banquet x2)

A.K.A. or good games that are best with more than 3.

Perikles

Perikles was well loved when we first played it. That was a four player game, and we have sinced played it 5 player and 3 player. In my opinion, 4 player was the best.

With three players, there are too many cities to vie for. It's not a huge problem, because they are not all equal (some have better armies, others are worth more VPs). Still, there was definitely less tension.

I did very poorly. I was getting neither the nominations to rule, nor the victories in battle. On many occasions, I realized I should have spread my forces to be in a position to get the VPs as the prime attacker/ defender, but didn't. I don't know.

It was much closer between Shemp and Kozure, but I don't remember who won.

I still liked it, but I wish we had been four.

Bacchus' Banquet

We played two hands of this odd little game. I started out as Caligula and won by getting the food and wine necessary to fulfill my goal. I also won the second hand as one of the characters that require 3 daggers. We had some nice doublethink going on with the gifting, and a few good uses of special cards messing up people's plans.

One of the issues with this game, other than it is yet another game better with 4 than 3 (probably even better with 5) is that the game length varies wildly between plays. If you are looking for daggers, you might have to wait a while if all that comes out is food.

Fun enough. Definitely different.

Cocktail Weenie! Pew Pew! (Way Out West, Small World)

Kozure picked an oldie this week, Way Out West, to accompany one of his trusty standbys... Small World.

Way Out West

Way Out West has the distinction of being one of the very few Worker Placement games that Shemp likes. I made a concerted effort to buy the stage coaches in all the towns as they were available (it mostly worked. Kozure got the one in Abylene). This gave me a substantial amount of income, and counterbalanced the fact that I have a tendency to overspend in this game. Early in the game, Shemp attacked me in Kansas City (shooting pretend guns in the air, yelling "Cocktail Weenie! Pew Pew!". He would go on to repeat this frequently over the course of the evening). He had good odds (5-3, I think). I crushed him, losing only a single cowboy. This, too, would be repeated frequently over the evening. I grabbed my first improbable wanted poster and Shemp licked his wounds.

It's not that I was invincible... against Kozure the odds generally dictated the outcome. With Shemp, however, my dice were ON FIRE. I had a lot of wanted posters.

Shemp did eventually lock down the entirety of Kansas City. In the last round, he stole the majority in San Antonio from me. Kozure held the majority in Abilene. I had a few buildings spread around and some cattle, but my ace in the hole was my majorities in wanted posters and money. When the dust settled, it was a tie between me and Shemp, with Kozure close behind. There is no tie-breaker in WOW, but we awarded the win to Shemp, since the luck I had against him should have put him dead last so he must have been playing "real well-like".

Small World

This session of Small World was characterized by frequent declines. I started with Wealthy Halflings, grabbed the 7 gold and put them in decline in round 2. Shemp had the Stout Dwarves, which also went into decline in round 2 (since he keeps their bonus in decline). Kozure played the Merchant Ghouls(?), and as usual the merchant ability proved lucrative. My Tritons stayed in the West, fearing the spreading horde of Kozure's Commando Skeletons. Shemp had the Flying Giants, but they did not prove as fearsome as when Luch had played them last. I spent my last two turns with the Swamp Sorcerers, but I Shemp went into decline and so I was unable to convert man of his tokens (Kozure came along with his Diplomat Ratmen, but he made the truce with me so no dice there either). I only managed one conversion. Bah.

Small World is a game of maximizing small differences. Kozure made good use of the Merchant ability and also went into decline once less than me and Shemp, and I think this was the recipe for his success. Hard to say for sure, but if there was one power I'd say was slightly out of balance, it would be Merchant. Still, fun game.

Popular opinion wins (Mare Nostrum: Mythlogy expansion, Galaxy Trucker)

Last week, there was a brief exchange in the comments section about other games that might be better points of comparison for Cyclades than RISK. Although the commenter suggested Antike, I felt that ultimately it was Mare Nostrum w/ mythology expansion. Mare Nostrum is a game that was well liked when we played it a few times in the fall, but now with only three players it wasn’t getting any table time. For the sake of comparison and contrast, I suggested we try it out despite BGG’s unanimous warnings against it.
Mare Nostrum: Mythology expansion
On the surface, Mare Nostrum with the Mythology expansion is extremely similar to Cyclades. They are both wargame and euro hybrids, both set in the Mediterranean and both concerning themselves with the gods and mythological creatures of that era. The similarities end there, however… the ways the games are treated make quite a difference (of course, I could list many games set in renaissance Italy about trading goods and managing resources too).
We had never actually played the mythlogy expansion, so even though I was aware the game might not work that well with three players, I WAS looking forward to giving the new stuff a test drive. The mythology expansion adds four main things to the game:
1) The Atlantis faction for a 6th player, along with an add-on board to accommodate it (not used in our game).
2) A new Role card, the Priest, and +/- 8 gods. The Priest adds a new step to each round where players can choose to make an offering to a single god that will give them a one time use power that round. The cost is a 3 card set.
3) New military units: Mythological creatures. Each faction has a specific mythological creature that can be purchased and placed on the board like any other military unit. It always rolls 6s in combat, and grants an additional ability depending on the creature. The cost is a 6 card set.
4) New heroes. There is a huge variety of heroes in this expansion. In fact, there are so many that I ignored them because it was too much reading to know what they all did.
I liked the mythological creatures. They are a simple addition that further differentiates the factions. I hope that the game doesn’t become too focused on them, but that’s just a worry… I have no specific reason to think they would.
I liked the Priest role and the associated gods as well, but as Kozure pointed out there is a very real possibility that they would grind the game to a halt. They have abilities like “destroy any City on the Board” , which seems quite powerful considering the effort that needs to be expended to do the same thing using the military route. Although it’s true that there is a god that exists solely to defend yourself against the other gods, it means spending a 3 card set every time and that would extend the game as well.
The session we played demonstrated why Mare Nostrum is not recommended with 3 players. Without the crowded board, it’s too easy for all three players to just keep exploring until one of them wins the game. Trading is wonky, too.
I was Carthage, Shemp was Greece and Kozure was Babylon. As we explored and grew our empires, it became clear that Shemp’s engine was winding up faster than ours. I purchased a behemoth and went after him just as he was about to win. Although he made my life difficult crossing the sea, I did get to Athens and took his richest province. Problem was, going after Shemp in this way simultaneously weakened me and therefore the victory was handed to Kozure (who had spread out to form a monstrously large empire in the meantime). Unfortunately, I don’t think this was an isolated incident… it’s just not meant to be played with three players.

Galaxy Trucker
We finished the evening with Galalxy Trucker. We tried the “Evil Machinations” expansion for the first time. The idea is that each player is dealt four cards at the start of the game. Each card is a particularly nasty/powerful event , and players must choose one to go into each event deck. In other words, each player knows about one of the bad things that is going to happen, and can therefore plan for it. I had been holding back on this one because it sounded particularly nasty, but having played it now… it seems easier than the Rough Road expansion.
One thing that happened: Shemp’s ship got hit by large cannon fire in such a way that the ship broke into three pieces!
Maybe next time, we’ll try with Rough Roads AND Evil Machinations… Galaxy Trucker is more fun when things go wrong anyway! This game has legs. Lots of fun.

Release the Kraken! (Cyclades x2)

Birthday money and a Paypal miss-hap has led me to owning a few new games. Most prominent among them is Cyclades.

Cyclades

A bit of trivia: Cyclades is correctly pronounced "KEYK-laTHayz" (Κυκλάδες) and not "Sigh-klayds". Who knew?

(Kozure, did. Apparently)

Cyclades is yet another game about civilizations rising and falling in the Mediterranean, though with Gods and mythological creatures in the mix. So, is it just another Mare Nostrum (w/ mythology expansion)?

No. It really isn't.

If I had to describe it in a nutshell, I'd say it's a kind of euro/ Risk lovechild with mythological creatures and fantastic production quality.

The board shows a map of a generic expanse of water filled with little islands. There are predetermined setups for 2-5 players (and a clever board which offers different combinations of islands for each player count). Each player starts with 2 armies and 2 fleets. The goal is to be the first to acquire two metropolis, either through building your own or conquering someone else's.

Five gods are overseeing the action. Zeus, Poseidon, Ares, Athena and Apollon:

Each game turn has two main phases, an auction to determine which god's favour you have won this turn (i.e. which ability you can use) followed by an action phase where the actual turn is played out.

1) The player who wins Zeus gets a priest which gives a discount on future bidding and can purchase a temple.
2) The player who wins Athena gets a philosopher which gives a player a metropolis if a set of four can be turned in and can purchase a university.
3) Ares allows a player to purchase and move armies and purchase a fortress.
4) Poseidon allows a player to purchase and move fleets and purchase a port.
5) Apollon gives a player gold and a cornucopia that increases future income.

The auction is Amun-Re/ Vegas Showdown style, and the outcome determines turn order in addition to the specific actions available to the player. Three mythological creatures are available for purchase each turn (from a deck of 20 or so), each giving the purchaser a game-bending one use power.

Over the course of the game, players build up their armies, build buildings, acquire priests and philosophers. Invasions happen. Krakens are released.

So, is it RISK? It's certainly more complex than RISK, but it's still fundamentally a relatively simple game about building up armies and beating each other up. It's like RISK, but moving armies and attacking is only possible if you win the auction for the favour of Aries. It's RISK, but a mythological creature can swoop in a turn someone else's plan on it's head. It's RISK, but there are multiple paths to victory, not just conquest. It's RISK, but it plays in about 2 hours.

In truth, these changes makes Cyclades very little like RISK, but then again... it somehow scratches a similar itch. I'd say it's quite a successful hybrid of euro and american design. You have to adjust to the tempo of bidding on the gods you need at the right time, figure out how to best take advantage of the creatures available, set up opportunities to threaten and/or defeat your neighboring islands, etc. It works well, and I liked it a lot. Playing with three players there is an adjustment to the normal god auctions that alternates which ones are available on a given round. Knowing that a particular auction won't come back for a turn or two gives me the feeling similar to the order selection in Mr. Jack.

We played two sessions. In the first, we were just getting a sense of how things worked together and really didn't capitalize on the creatures much. While others were floating large fleets and amassing great armies, I was quietly building buildings. I used the power of the cyclops to convert one of my buildings to the last one I needed to build my second metropolis and won the game.

The second was much more hard fought. Shemp made a move about 30 minutes in and stole a metropolis from Kozure. He was bringing in +/- 10 gold a round and seemed unstoppable. Just as he was about to build his last building, Kozure stole half his money using the Griffon and unleashed the Kraken on his massive fleet and reduced it to kindling. Kozure also managed to steal a large, profitable island from him. Shemp was not close to winning anymore.

Lucky for me, I was. I needed either one last philosopher or a university. Trouble was, both of those need Athena and between Kozure and Shemp there was always someone with enough money to outbid me. Earlier in the game, Kozure had been forced to abandon an island with a few buildings. If I could get there, I would have the university I needed and therefore win the game. They set Medusa on me (troops are frozen on the island, and cannot leave), but I knew I would get my second metropolis shortly (then again, Shemp's earlier near annihilation reminded me that nothing is assured) . On the turn I made it, Shemp had managed a second metropolis we were therefore tied. I had more gold, and won the tiebreaker.

Shemp could have won if he had noticed that Polyphemus could have been purchased to make my fleets scatter and prevent access to the island I stole to win the game. I record this purely for posterity. Honest.

Oh, and "Don't s*** f*** my bowl noodle".

Update 2010 05 25

A few additional thoughts:

1) One of the critical game design improvements this has over Mare Nostrum is a built in timer to force the end-game. Each round, someone gets a philosopher. 4 philosophers = 1 metropolis. Mare Nostrum has other advantages, not the least of which is greater depth of play, but it requires more players, it's longer and less aproachable.
2) One of the major advantages Cyclades has over most games of this type is that it apparently plays well across it's entire range of players. Most seem to require the maximum to work well (Mare Nostrum, A Game of Thrones, etc), and finding that many players is not always easy.
3) I worry the game length will go up to high with more players, though. I can't think of anything that would counterbalance the added time required for a 4 player game compared to a 3 player game, for example. Given that our 3 player games this week took 2 hours each, this could be an issue.